Elfen Liner Notes : Misdirection
by Gojirob
Summary: <html><head></head>Why won't Yu Kakuzawa let Kurama interview a living witness to one of Lucy's attacks? Much more than anyone knows will challenge the history we know. Ties in to 'Long Live The Queen'</html>


Misdirection

by Rob Morris

THE DICLONIUS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, OCTOBER 1ST, 1999

The helicopter began to take off, for its trip to the mainland. Kurama was about to pursue their goblin, the theorized and now-confirmed Diclonius Queen, a barely-teen girl who began her trail of blood at a local orphanage already known for its unflattering history with Child Welfare.

But again he was stopped.

"Director's Orders, Kurama-San."

Kurama got out of the copter, and immediately sought his superior, a man who had gotten his position through equal parts nepotism and raw talent. Administratively, though, Yu Kakuzawa had more than a few rough edges. Of all the women there, only Kisaragi would go near him, and that was largely because she fell down before he could make a pass at her. Inside his office, Kakuzawa offered his chin.

"Are you going to punch me?"

"Any reason I shouldn't?"

"Because you're not an unreasonable person, Kurama. Though the fervor with which you keep on pursuing this red herring makes me wonder."

"What about the fervor with which you keep blocking me?"

Kakuzawa shrugged a shrug that seemed somehow more dismissive for its lack of movement.

"I am the Director. Jaunts to the mainland are expensive. Searches take up valuable time. I get to decide how valuable resources are expended."

With both men at an impasse, Kakuzawa gestured for his old friend to sit down.

"Make your case before me again-again."

Kurama began to leave.

"I don't much see the point."

"Oh, so I'm convicted as a tyrant without trial, now?"

Kurama imagined that the Kakuzawa family must have had an intense history of persecution, given the way such charges were offered up almost as an afterthought, by both his boss and his father. He had no idea.

"Fine. Just before what we now believe to be a five-year run of inducing blood vessel failure and infecting males in the Kamakura area, our young Queen killed several people in short spurts, becoming the serial killer the police in that area call Kaze No Kaede..."

"Poor classification. Should have named her a spree killer..."

Kurama's glare only got a smile from Kakuzawa.

"Sorry."

"Anyway, she typically seems to have been seeking shelter, though she's become cleverer about it since then. Several families torn to pieces in the style of the Diclonius long before the first recorded birth. The orphanage can be written off as some kind of personal grudges against those four children, else she would have killed a lot more. The supposed carnival bomb can be allowed for in the hustle and bustle of those places-small children get pushed around there, and this one was capable of pushing back. In each case, she killed who she had to, whatever her internal reasoning. Not fond of leaving witnesses, our Queen."

Kurama picked up again before one of Kakuzawa's snarky remarks could once more derail him.

"Then comes one last family. Not killed for shelter. Fertile male killed, so no infection. And most of all-one left alive. She never leaves anyone alive. An anomaly."

Kakuzawa maintained his heavy skepticism.

"An exception that proves the rule."

"Or-an exception she herself wasn't expecting. Which leaves us with a living witness."

"A witness who, by all accounts, never truly recovered from the incident in question. Apt to draw a blank on close family members."

Kurama was determined.

"Okay, so it may end up leading nowhere. But until we talk to that witness, we won't know the Queen's reasons for not simply getting rid of..."

"How about this, Kurama? Our Diclonius Queen, killing machine without peer, screwed up. Maybe more people were coming than she could handle, or she thought there were. Maybe the witness reminded her of her baby-crib 'woobie' somehow. Maybe the witness even offered to share their food, and the Queen was hungry so she let them live. Maybe-Heh-maybe what happened was the result of the worst schoolkid break-up ever. Have you seen what those girls will do to the one who spurns their confession?"

No, thought Kurama. *Though at one time it was my dream to raise just such a little girl.*

Kurama nodded.

"You know, we really should give our Queen a name, even if just a working one."

Kakuzawa again smiled.

"I say - Lucy."

Kurama seemed surprised.

"After the Australopithecus find from Northern Africa?"

Kakuzawa shook his head.

"No-after Lucille Ball, the queen of chaos on American TV. Did you ever see the one where she baked the gigantic loaf of bread, till it came bursting out of the oven like a big..."

Kurama got up.

"You tell me to be sober with our resources, and then you refuse to be serious about the most important subject possibly in modern Human history."

Kakuzawa calmed him down.

"Tell you what. Ready a flight to the mainland for both of us. Stay a couple of weeks. Now that we know she's in the Kamakura area, we'll also know what to look for, and maybe we'll get lucky, huh?"

"What about my witness?"

"Again with this poor amnesiac kid? Let's find her, Kurama. Let's find our Lucy, and tell her the Tropicana Club is closed, and we're taking her football, too. Why bother with someone who might lead us to her, when we can get the girl herself?"

Kurama sighed openly.

"Make sure to authorize this jaunt with your father. If I have to answer to my superior, so do you."

"That's my end. You just ready the supplies and set up our safehouse with the Kamakura PD."

When Kurama had gone, Kakuzawa quickly checked the monitors for the whereabouts of Isobe, Shirakawa and even Kisaragi. None were on his floor, but still he kept a brisk pace as he went to his father's office suite. Even though he had all but said he was going there, some might wonder why a simple phone call for excursion permission wouldn't suffice.

"Father, I have important information."

Chief Kakuzawa did not turn around to face his oldest boy.

"Do you? I have to doubt that. Oh-your little sister says Hi. Mind you, her voice when she said it was enough to shatter stone."

"How can you speak of that-that thing-as my sister?"

"Well, it did start out as your sister. Oh, Yu, my dear boy...were you hoping for her to get old enough so you could show her your 'secret lab' as you have so many lovely female students? Well, rejoice, she is a Goddess now."

"Father, I..."

"So what's your information?"

Kakuzawa the Junior reminded himself of who he dealt with.

"Father, there was a living witness to the rampage of the Diclonius Queen. Someone who should not be alive, but she let alone. His name is..."

The Chief sighed.

"His name is Kouta. She came to care deeply for him, I believe. He is the great-grandson of the last woman in our family before your sister to be born without the family mark. Banished according to the custom of that time, and given a series of small properties as dowry, including the once-fashionable Maple Restaurant and Inn. So, to review..."

The Chief now turned around, his disdain evident.

"...you barged in here with 'vital information', which was to tell me that the messiah and restorer of our kind sought out a member of our family, however distantly removed, confirming our kind's genetic destiny with her?"

"Father, I knew nothing of this..."

"GET OUT! Find her. Use Kurama, the only useful thing you ever brought into my presence."

When the chastised junior was gone, the elder pulled up a viewscreen. A young girl in a woolen cap was marveling at giraffes and elephants in the company of a young boy who found her joy infectious. The next wall then pulled away, revealing a woman in restraints and a two-year-old boy with horns huddled next to her. With venom in her voice, the woman looked at the happy children on-screen.

"What is this?"

He cupped her cheek, and it was only for the boy she did not throw up at his touch.

"Don't you see, my dear? Our girl has a boyfriend."

The girl who came to be called Lucy was captured later that week, and her friend killed during the effort. These are the only events that can be verified beyond all shadow of any doubt. 

In the world of the Kakuzawas, no timeline, no history, no account and no aspect of anything was to be fully trusted. Until the day of his death and then some years after, reality was a fragile thing in the hands of the Chief, its master manipulator. The man called Kurama would literally go to his grave undoing the very last of the Kakuzawa lies.


End file.
